Putting Chinese culture on the world map

For years, Hong Kong has enjoyed a degree of historical importance, albeit different from its modern status as a free port, in the narrative space of profound and extensive Chinese civilization.

The shared cultural roots and heritage passed down for generations between the motherland and the city are indisputable in placing Hong Kong in a vital role to shape global narratives of the nation's culture, history and development.

At the heart of the impactful, meaningful storytelling lie the themes of our times - cultural confidence, historical consciousness and national identity that provide a sense of continuity and belonging - explains Ng Chi-wo, head of Hong Kong's Chinese Culture Promotion Office.

This is where the office can come in, by what he describes as "adding flesh to the city's unremitting efforts to enhance the general public's understanding and recognition of Chinese culture in a more resource-consolidated and systematic manner".

The new unit, up and running since April, is part of a whole package of initiatives announced by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu in his 2023 Policy Address.

Riding high on a dazzling array of events aimed at fostering deeper appreciation of Chinese culture, the office made a good start with a key exhibition exploring the origins and birth of Chinese civilization and three successive early dynasties - Xia (c.21st century-16th century BC), Shang (c.16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (c.11th century-256 BC).

China launched the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project in the 1990s, and the current Project to Trace the Origins of Chinese Civilization in a bid to answer the fundamental questions intricately linked to the essence of the nation.

The decadeslong archaeological excavations and comprehensive cross-disciplinary research are proving Chinese civilization is a great continuum with strong unity, rich diversity and unbroken development. Along the magnificent journey of cultural collision, exchange and integration, Hong Kong has always had a presence - from its humble beginnings as a fishing village thriving on the bounties of the seas to its meteoric rise as a world-renowned financial center and modern metropolis.

"The history of Hong Kong never begins with being established as a free port in the 1840s. Instead, it stretches back far longer than most people realize," Ng tells China Daily in an interview.

Ng, who had been museum director of the Hong Kong Museum of History since 2022 before helming the new agency, believes the special administrative region has so much to tell about itself and the country. Many tales are rarely stated, leading to a "shockingly popular stereotype" that Hong Kong has its story intertwined only with episodes of modern Chinese history, he says.

As one of the most stirring, yet perhaps less well-known archaeological discoveries in Hong Kong, a jade blade dating back to the Shang Dynasty, excavated on Lamma Island in 1990 and designated as a national treasure, shared the identical carving style with those from the Erlitou ruins in Central China's Henan province - the important cradle and symbol of the Chinese nation and civilization.

Such a carving style has also been seen in the Sanxingdui ruins from Sichuan province that presents the "diversity in unity" developmental pattern of Chinese civilization, and all the way south to Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia, notes Ng, highlighting this as "one of the most direct pieces of evidence of the cultural connections between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland thousands of years ago".

The 'right language'

With Hong Kong having the best of both worlds, it's an ideal place for promoting Chinese culture to bigger audiences on the global stage, says Ng. "With a sophisticated and unique melding of Eastern and Western influences, and a history that has made the city a meeting point for the nation and the world, Hong Kong, naturally, knows well how to use the right language to tell the compelling story of the nation's time-honored art and culture."

The city has nurtured a constellation of the finest minds in translation and interpretation to help present traditional cultures, such as xiqu, or Chinese opera, in a bilingual manner, a practice far from common to see on the mainland, he says.

Equally important, if not more so, is the cultural wealth Hong Kong could harness with the backing of the motherland.

The city, known for its powerful pull on global cultural exhibitions and shows, has seen no shortage of amazing artifacts on display. "But many must-see exhibitions are something you could hardly ask for. You simply have to wait for the opportunity of collaboration with other museums and cultural institutions to emerge," Ng says.

The veteran curator and cultural relics conservator is longing for something that he can make happen, rather than just sit and wait for what might happen. With past exhibitions offering a glimpse of random episodes or highlights of the long-standing Chinese history stretching back to antiquity, he is eyeing exhibitions about significant periods in chronological order on an annual basis.

"We cannot make this happen without unswerving support from our mainland counterparts."

Ng turned to the National Cultural Heritage Administration and got a firm helping hand from a dozen museums and cultural institutions in Henan province.

The exhibition, featuring over 150 sets of cultural relics from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, fired the first shot for the General History of China Exhibition Series scheduled to wrap up in 2029, as a tribute to the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. An exhibition on the Qin (221-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-AD 220) dynasties will be launched next year. In a broader sense, it adds a remarkable footnote to the inaugural Chinese Culture Festival - an expansion of the city's signature event the Chinese Opera Festival that just concluded its 12th edition.

Besides the office's mission of integrating resources from the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, including 15 museums and two art spaces, the new office works closely with the local education community to help spread the seeds of Chinese culture.

Believing that "what is gained from books is nothing compared with setting foot on where history goes deep", Ng led a study tour of more than 20 secondary-school Chinese history teachers to Henan province in June, visiting the region's wealth of historical and cultural heritages, including the Yin Ruins - the birthplace of oracle bone inscriptions, the earliest known Chinese writing.

At the end of the day, the cultural inheritance goes beyond tales of the privileged, which usually take up a disproportionate amount of narrative space of many ancient civilizations, and the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. Ng believes it nails every aspect of ordinary people's daily life.

From Wong Tai Sin Temple, a spectacle of offerings and divinations, to feng shui, from the Jiao Festival of Cheung Chau - also known as the island's Bun Festival - to the Lingnan culture-inspired gardens across the city, many time-honored traditions have long been cherished and practiced by Hong Kong people in a way that we aren't aware of.

"This is how the richness of Chinese culture finds expression right here in Hong Kong," Ng notes. "This is also why we should find an entry point for the magnificence of Chinese culture unfolding itself in a more innovative and accessible manner."

Contact the writer at sophialuo@chinadailyhk.com